This invention relates to a display device for use in electronic calculators or the like, and more particularly to a display device which achieves a unique display operation.
In the past, when it was desired to display data of a length more than the capacity of a display panel in an electronic calculator, the data to be displayed needed to be split into two or more groups in advance. In this case data expressing the same thought had to be split into groups which were inevitably separate and the connections between two adjacent ones of the data groups were indefinite and vague, leading to operator errors in recognizing the overall or combined contents being displayed. To overcome this problem, the same applicants of this application have proposed a unique device which shifts the contents of a display panel digit by digit at a given interval of time, as disclosed and illustrated in U.S. application Ser. No. 058,666, filed July 18, 1979, and entitled DISPLAY DEVICE FOR ELECTRONIC CALCULATORS OR THE LIKE.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a display device which uses a dot matrix type display panel for displaying numbers, characters, symbols and similar patterns and shifts successively the overall contents on the display panel when the length of data to be displayed exceeds the capacity of the display panel, wherein the shifting movement of the display takes place dot by dot in a lateral direction.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a display device wherein either a conventional display mode (in other words, a static display mode) or a dot shift display mode is selectable with the former displaying keyed information or the results of arithmetic operations, for example, and the latter displaying instructions indicating the sequence of arithmetic operations in a dot matrix form mainly for use in function calculators.